Get That Job Daily: How to be an engineering manager

Every working day this month, as part of our New Year, New Job 2014 special, Develop brings you a game industry professional to explain what their job involves and key advice to help you follow in their footsteps.

Engineering manager

Riccardo Tramma, engineering manager at Outplay Entertainment, describes what it takes to become a pro in this technical field.

How would someone become an engineering manager? Be passionate about your job and never stop studying and learning technology and processes.

Listen to the others and try to be rational and objective as much as you can.

Be ready to challenge and to be challenged. Try to think out of the box and learn how to manage time and resources.

For the rest, there is no secret formula. Give the best you can and master your discipline.

What qualifications and/or experience do you need? I personally studied Engineering. It will not give you the solution to the formula but more powerful tools and the attitude to discover the formula and even create new ones when you need it.

It is not about what you know now, but what you will be able to learn tomorrow.

It helps to gain experience working in different environments and with experts in different sectors.

Working in a team is a great opportunity to embrace techniques coming from people with different skill sets.

In any situation though it is extremely important that you continue to study in your own time.

What do you look for when recruiting a new engineer? First of all they need to know how to develop, of course, but that’s just the starting point.

They must be someone able to reason and think over a situation. Be able to tackle problems that sometimes don't have a well-defined solution, but, at the same time, know where to look for a solution when it is available somewhere.

The knowledge of the tools and the understanding of the technical terms and principles used in the field is extremely important.

Finally, they must be able to find and recognise their mistakes and be able to learn from them.

What opportunities are there for career progression? Everyone has the same opportunities. If you are focused and passionate the progression will follow naturally, shaped on top of your skills and ambitions. Always remember that you need to know how to walk before you can run.

Why choose to follow a career in your field? This is a personal choice really. If you are passionate about technology and you are intrigued by technical challenges then you already know that this is an exciting field that will never stop amazing you.